Al took us to a churchyard instead. Blue shadows round the back made it feel like twilight. Great old trees blocking the sun, making this a hidden place. Ditches of cow parsley smelling of fevery-musk and old summers, tombstones lost under the green, and in the raggedy bushes around the edge of the tombs, five or six beehives.
We take photographs amongst the tombs, and there is a pleasing summery serenity -churchyards (unlike in most ghost stories) are peaceful places, places you can sit and dream in, feel quite at home in this world (or another), happy afternoons spent listening to the wind in trees (churchyards always have the best trees) drowsing over ghost stories or notebook sketches.
There is always something slightly mysterious in such moments of serenity though. As we wondered amongst the grassy graves, it struck me how large the graveyard was, full of weedy paths and dead ends you could get lost in, and everywhere a labyrinth of trees, a yew-tree maze, dark and guarding everything like sentinels.
The place was deep in twilight, even though the sun was shining.
We went back to Brighton and the Evening Star, and drank more ale, and before Andy (who had joined us) and myself caught the taxi back, we were caught in some altercation in the 24 hour shop by the station. Some guy - obviously having some kind of psychotic episode - was swearing at everyone to get out of the shop before a 'Jamaican cartel' came in and 'killed everybody'. He shouted at everyone that he had 'seen people being executed' and that he was unlikely to 'survive the next four hours'. The security guard ran away and called the police. Other people tried to calm him down. The police turned up and did nothing ('ignoring him's the best idea. We can't do anything if he's not lamped anyone'). One went to talk to him (the man had stumbled off down the road). Andy and myself caught the taxi back home, and never found out the end of the drama.
I talked with Andy in the kitchen for a bit, listened to a few Sol Invictus songs online and went so sleep. A few train-miles away, there was a churchyard that was even quieter than earlier, and even if it was past midnight, I wondered if it would still feel like twilight there.
I wonder if I thought about it as I fell asleep.
